COMMENTARY: Governor Corbett, it's time to talk seriously about taxes and education

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a year-long series of occasional editorials from the editorial board of Digital First Media newspapers in Pennsylvania focusing on the crucial “Keystone’” issues of education and property taxes.

Gov. Tom Corbett is ready to talk turkey when it comes to education funding in Pennsylvania.

Brace yourself, governor. We could not agree more.

In fact, we feel so strongly about the state of education funding in Pennsylvania we have decided to make it the focus of a yearlong editorial project called “The Keystones: Education Funding and Property Taxes.”

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That’s because you can’t fix one without addressing the other. They are intertwined in creating a perilous, unlevel playing field that for far too long has hurt the state’s neediest children. Kids in places like William Penn, Upper Darby, Pottstown, Norristown and York are getting shortchanged for no other reason than simple geography. They suffer because of where they live, usually in distressed communities with an eroding tax base, where property taxes, the basic building block of education funding in Pennsylvania, are stretched to the limit.

Outraged homeowners, in particular senior citizens and those on fixed incomes, have for years screamed about being taxed out of their homes. Anxious school boards have responded by looking to make cuts rather than increase taxes. And when they do raise taxes, those with battered economies face the grim reality that millage hikes in places with eroding bases do not raise nearly as much money as in communities with stable economies.

Couple that with years of austere state budgets, elimination of federal stimulus funds and revenue cuts, and you have the classic uneven playing field that has afflicted hard-hit districts for years.

The issue is not a new one. Yes, it’s Groundhog Day. Yes, you’ve heard the argument before. You’re about to hear it again. But this time the voice offering hope for struggling districts will come from the governor’s mansion – we hope.

Corbett will issue his budget proposal on Tuesday. He is widely hinting that he will increase education funding. And he also has been frank in agreeing that the state’s education funding mechanism – the one based on property taxes – is out of whack.

“It’s not fair right now, OK? So we need to address that,” Corbett said in an eye-opening change of course. “Let’s get a true, fair funding system of all the schools of Pennsylvania, not for one district or another.”

Corbett’s words echo a voice in the wilderness emanating from Delaware County years ago. Rep. Nick Micozzie, R-163rd Dist., who has represented Upper Darby and surrounding towns for 36 years and will retire at the end of this term, has seen first-hand the damage inflicted on public education by this uneven playing field.

That’s why he was one of the first to call for blowing up the current system. Micozzie envisioned what he called the “Successful Schools” funding plan. It would earmark more funds for distressed districts. It went nowhere.

That movement grew from a Costing-Out Study that, not surprisingly, came to the same conclusion: The state was quickly devolving into the “haves” vs. the “have-nots” in terms of education spending. Some recommendations from the study were put in place in 2008, only to be abandoned a few years later, before they could be fully implemented.

Corbett, smarting from tanking poll numbers and staring at a bruising, uphill re-election battle, is now hinting at change, including a call for more funding, and a study to determine a “true funding system” that would be fair for all Pennsylvanians. It mimics House Bill 1738, which would establish a bipartisan commission to study and make recommendations for a new funding mechanism.

We want more, and we will use this “Keystones” series of editorials as a sounding board for ideas and calls for action.

We’d start with the property tax, and urge a full discussion and vote by the Legislature on Senate Bill 76, which would eliminate property taxes and substitute increases in the personal income and sales taxes. It should be acted on along with its companion, House Bill 76. The Senate version is sponsored by Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill. It currently sits in the Senate Finance Committee. Any number of previous efforts to kill the property tax have failed to even come to a vote.

Yes, there are those, including the state’s Independent Fiscal Office, who maintain the numbers in this “tax swap” don’t add up, that the new levies would not raise the same revenue as current property taxes. At a minimum, these bills need to be discussed and the vote of every member of the House and Senate recorded.

Earlier this week Rep. Todd Stephens, R-Montgomery, added his voice to those calling for an increase in state education funding.

We urge citizens to get involved. Contact your state legislators. Write letters to the editor. Talk to your neighbors. Use us as your sounding board. We invite you to join the newspapers and websites of Digital First Media properties in Pennsylvania in seeking change.

This crisis has lingered too long. This year, through this series of editorials, we hope to deliver results.

For now, we wait to hear from Mr. Corbett. The stage is all yours, governor.